The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Defending the Christian Faith

100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles To Faith Today By David Bonagura Jr. Sophia Institute Press, 2025. Paperback, 176 pages, $17.95. Reviewed by David Weinberger.  n the day to day trenches of adult life,” writes David Foster...

Lessons from Sparta

“…Sparta’s Third Attic War and its predecessors are philosophical meditations on such weighty issues as the rise and fall of civilizations and the fundamental motives of major players within these civilizations.”

The Character of the People is the Character of the Regime

“To see why ‘realism’ is inadequate as a paradigm, Rahe seeks to rehabilitate the old idea of grand strategy as crucial for the competent study of international affairs.”

Defending the Christian Faith

100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles To Faith Today By David Bonagura Jr. Sophia Institute Press, 2025. Paperback, 176 pages, $17.95. Reviewed by David Weinberger.  n the day to day trenches of adult life,” writes David Foster...
The Fourth Awokening and Its Discontents

The Fourth Awokening and Its Discontents

“Each of the ‘Great Awokenings’ thus have a common cause: elite overproduction, a situation in which there are more people who feel entitled to elite positions than there are such positions available.”

Dissonance and Faith

Dissonance and Faith

“While billed as an accessible and clarifying introductory guide to the ideas that shaped the New Testament, I would not endorse this description of Spencer’s book. It is not a book for beginners, nor an introduction, nor a clarifying guide. It is, rather, a mineshaft—dark, with dim lighting—in which the wary may yet strike treasure.”

Prudence in the Political Philosophy of George Washington

Prudence in the Political Philosophy of George Washington

“What is apparent from reading Washington’s private letters and public documents is that his political ideas were formed from experience and sober assumptions about the possibilities of politics. He was repeatedly reminded by his experience in political affairs of the limits and challenges of politics.”

Hope in the Past, Hope in the Future

Hope in the Past, Hope in the Future

“Stephen Presley proposes a model of cultural engagement that looks to the earliest centuries of the Church, its fledgling period before the so-called ‘Constantinian shift.’ Given the ongoing dismantling of the structures of Christendom, the earliest period of the Church offers an ever more fitting parallel to ours, one in which religious devotion is regarded not merely as irrelevant but increasingly as a threat to social order.”

The Sacredness of Life: An Unbought Grace

The Sacredness of Life: An Unbought Grace

“Two new books by former abortion providers chronicle how far this noble profession has fallen from grace, as it has been corrupted by the avarice and dull materialism of our age. They also show how the nobility of the physician can be reclaimed by returning to first principles and recognizing the sacredness of life…”

The Social Gospel for Our Times

The Social Gospel for Our Times

“Newson’s privileging of our temporal horizontal relationships with one another over our spiritual vertical relationship with God… has the tendency to reduce all human relationships to material ones rooted in power.”

Political Exodus in America

Political Exodus in America

“…we have in American Refugees a quite worthwhile and entertaining discussion of the experience of one refugee’s relocation from the most liberal of states to one of the most conservative, though conservative in ways that the author did not entirely anticipate.”

Can the United States Have a Good History?

Can the United States Have a Good History?

“Midwesterners believed in Christianity, optimism, tolerance, local involvement, equality, and embracing hard work, including physical work, while avoiding luxury. They lived out their values by extensive reading, attending public lectures, and founding colleges and primary schools that taught character.”

Yuval Levin’s Stirring Defense of the Constitution

Yuval Levin’s Stirring Defense of the Constitution

“[Levin] believes that, far from being the source of our problems, the American Founding can teach us the best solution to our present discontent. To deal with the growing crisis of faith, he directs our attention to the wisdom at the heart of the Constitution.”

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

Shop through Regnery
Support the Kirk Center
& University Bookman